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By Paul Williams
The Rivers State Internal Revenue Service RIRS) currently generates 70% of its monthly revenue from Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE) deductions.
Ignatius Chukwu, Regional Editor of BusinessDay, however says the RIRS can generate more revenue if allowed the autonomy granted it by the law establishing agency.
He was speaking at the Tax Conference, ‘Taxing the Future,’ organised by the Chartered Institution of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN) in Port Harcourt on October 14, 2025.
Chukwu said the law establishing the RIRS grants it autonomy in its exercise of tax administration, as well as a 5% operations fund to deploy in the pursuit of efficient tax generation processes.
He however noted that the agency has in reality not been allowed this autonomy, citing the tenure of the RIRS board chairman and its lawful expiration as an example of such denial.
Chukwu pointed at what he described as political interference, which he said had often denied the tenure of successive chairmen of the agency the protection guaranteed it and enshrined in Section 8 of the establishing law.
He said if the RIRS is allowed free hand and “real autonomy,” it will go a long way to enable the agency establish tax generation processes that are independent of political interference and expand the tax net to include the informal sector and high net-worth individuals, thereby expanding revenue generation.
Chukwu pointed out that one of the key elements of the autonomy granted the RIRS by the law passed by the state House of Assembly, “is that you can’t sack the chairman once you have appointed and screened him.”
He said the law ensures that the chairman is appointed through Section 5, but can only be sacked through Section 8, which terminates his appointment through expiration of tenure, death, resignation or such.
“A chairman would have to be found guilty of specific offences, which means there would be probe. Else, he will be allowed to wind his tenure to the end. Hire and fire at will makes him a mere Director in the ministry, not autonomous chairman.
“Section 8 states how an executive chairman can leave office, while section 5 states how he can be appointed. So, removing him without recourse to Section 8 is wrong. But, each time they sack them, I go and look, they never sack them through Section 8. They just remove them.
“Number two thing about the autonomy,” Chukwu said, “is that the agency is supposed to use a minimum of 5% of their gross income per year to fight for tax.
“You cannot fight for tax with your official government money. It is when they give you that 5%. Which you can use to lobby somebody to reveal secrets of a big man whose idea is money. You cannot use official money to buy that information,” he said.
Chukwu noted that the 5% can enable RIRS to deploy independent initiatives aimed at “pursuing those who are hiding their money (tax).”
He said, “The clever man hiding his money is using the best tax manager in the world to hide his money. And you want to use government apparatus to catch him. Can you?
“No. So, they deny you (tax agency) that money. And so, you cannot pursue them. With ordinary government protocols, you cannot pursue them,” Chukwu said.
He further said that the informal sector in the state has been overtaxed, with traders and artisans paying for over 70 items on an “black market” tax list.
He pointed out that low income earners, such as artisans, who are exempt from PAYE, have been pushed into what he described as the “black market tax system,” which is operated by non-state actors, and maintains a high tax incidence on the already overtaxed informal sector.
Meanwhile, Israel Onwuanaku Egbunefu, Chairman of the Rivers State Internal Revenue Service (RIRS), has said 70% percent of the tax receipt in Rivers State is from Pay As You Earn (PAYE).
He made this known while presenting a paper on ‘Expanding the Tax Net beyond Salaries,’ at at the 2025 Tax Conference.
Egbunefu said the need to wean the state of the over dependence on this source, and to diversify to other revenue sources, such as Blue and Digital economy, is both urgent and imperative.
